Rated Ranking: 100 Best Companies to Work For 2014

100 Best Companies to Work For 2014

Summary
To pick the 100 Best Companies to Work For, Fortune partners with the Great Place to Work Institute, claiming to “conduct the most extensive employee survey in corporate America”. In total 252,000 employees working in 257 firms were surveyed this year. Two-thirds of a company’s score is based on the results of the institute’s Trust Index survey, which is sent to a random sample of employees from each company. The survey asks questions related to their attitudes about management’s credibility, job satisfaction, and camaraderie. The other third is based on responses to the institute’s Culture Audit, which includes detailed questions about pay and benefit programs and a series of open-ended questions about hiring practices, methods of internal communication, training, recognition programs, and diversity efforts. Any company that is at least five years old and has more than 1,000 U.S. employees is eligible.

Participating in the survey means – apart from the considerable participation fee – significant time investment for companies, their HR organizations and employees who have to complete the questionnaires. This is the reason why many major companies decide not to participate, which makes the results less representative for “corporate America”. Detailed results and benchmark reports for individual companies must be purchased for additional money. The title of the ranking “100 Best Companies to Work for” is somewhat misleading – as exclusively corporations with at least 1,000 employees in the US are included. Therefore, the ranking should be renamed into “100 Best Companies to Work for in the US”. Less than 10% of the top 100 are companies not headquartered in the US, among them Allianz, Hitachi, Mercedes, Novo Nordisk and Roche Diagnostics.

Despite these flaws, the ranking is a useful tool for (HR) managers of (some) large corporations to find out how they are perceived by their employees in terms of employer attractiveness – and at the same time it gives job seekers a good overview where to apply. As the ranking has a long history, it is a good tool to gain overview on how individual companies developed over years. Fortunes respective data base can be accessed here.

To read more about the ranking and Fortune’s cover story, please click here.

Do the ranking results provide overall orientation where companies stand?

limited orientation only (1 point)

fair orientation provided (3 points)

very good orientation (5 points)

Is the Ranking published in the same format on a regular basis, e.g. annually, which allows to track developments and comparisons over time?

ranking is published for the first time (1 point)

ranking is published for the second time in the same format (3 points)

ranking is published for more than 3 times on a regular basis in the same format (5 points)

Do the ranking results provide added value and further insights on how companies are evaluated in in their industry, e.g. detailed ratings in various sub-dimensions of the overall result?

limited added value only (1 point)

fair amount of added value (3 points)

high amount of added value (5 points)

Aggregated points: 11 (of max. 15)

Is the ranking based on a representative survey among key stakeholders or on a jury only?

Ranking is based on a jury’s opinion only. (1 point)

Ranking is based on a small survey or only on a limited group of stakeholders. (3 points)

Ranking is based on a robust and representative survey. (5 points)

Comment: The 2013 ranking is based on responses of more than 252,000 employees working in 257 firms in the US. This is a relative large number, but compared to the extraordinary large number of huge corporations in the US, only a fraction – and therefore not representative for “Corporate America”

Is the ranking methodology easy to understand and reasonable – even for non-statisticians?

Methodology not easy to understand and not reasonable. (1 point)

Methodology fairly good to understand and reasonable. (3 points)

Methodology very easy to understand and reasonable. (5 points)

Is the ranking methodology easy to access and transparent?

Methodology not easy to find and not sufficiently transparent. (1 point)

Methodology fairly good to find and of medium transparency. (3 points)

Ranking managed/produced by institute/organization: Great Place to Work Institute

Ranking published by media outlet: Fortune

Date of recent publication: January 30, 2014

Date of previous publication: January 18, 2013

About Markus Renner, PhD

Markus Renner is Co-Owner and Managing Partner of Branding-Institute AG in Basel since 2008, consulting multinational corporations and organizations as strategic advisor and innovator in the fields of strategic communications, brand and reputation management.